This year in February I and a few friends spent four weeks in Japan. It’s always hard to sum up a long trip in a few sentenses in anything other than “it was fanstastic”.

Travelling with some friends we spent our first two weeks in Hakuba, Nagano for a snowboarding trip. Best snow I have ever experienced, best runs, best people and best friends! From here we visited the cities of Kanazawa’s old samurai area, Matsumoto to see the ‘Crow Castle’ or properly known as Matstumoto-jo. We also did fun things like visit the snow monkey park, found an abandoned pachinko parlor, went to an Onsen, dinners at an Izakaya and several snowboarded at as many ski resorts in the region as we could.

I have split the trip up into two main sections, Hakuba – Nagano and Tokyo to Hiroshima – its easier that way.